


What The Morrow Will Bring

by Vamillepudding



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, M/M, Protective Graves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 12:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8752060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vamillepudding/pseuds/Vamillepudding
Summary: For kink meme prompt: "Newt joins MACUSA as a consultant, but here's the thing -- he made all other aurors look like idiots when he caught Grindelwald. They decide to get revenge on him, treating him progressively worse (pranks, insults, etc.). Eventually they go too far and try to rape him, when the real Graves comes to his rescue."
It took Graves another week to find out what was wrong with Newt, and when he did find out, he kind of wished he hadn’t.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was for the kinkmeme prompt: "Newt joins MACUSA as a consultant, but here's the thing -- he made all other aurors look like idiots when he caught Grindelwald. They decide to get revenge on him, treating him progressively worse (pranks, insults, etc.). Eventually they go too far and try to rape him, when the real Graves comes to his rescue." (http://fantasticbeasts-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/459.html?thread=361931#cmt361931)

Percival Graves had been rescued and retaken his position as Director of Magical Security as well as head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at MACUSA a little over a year ago, and apart from the occasional nightmare, he was very well, no thanks for asking. So when Seraphina informed him that Newton Scamander was to return to New York and play advisor to MACUSA, Graves was decidedly Not Happy, seeing it as an insult to his capabilities.   
  
Exactly what Scamander would be advising them for, Seraphina didn’t say. Graves meanwhile drew his own conclusions from the silence that greeted his enquiry. Probably Scamander’s book had failed, and the British Ministry of Magic was unwilling to employ him again. Or, just as possibly, Scamander had been banned from Great Britain for carrying around a case of highly illegal beasts with him at all times. No, Graves had never met the man in person, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t read the reports. Newt Scamander, it seemed, was a criminal through and through, and the only reason he hadn’t been persecuted yet was that he kept, irritably so, saving creatures and humans alike – Graves himself included. The man appealed to people’s consciousness, that was it, the reason why he wasn’t in a prison cell. It wasn’t that Graves wasn’t grateful, because he was. Scamander had detected something that none of the aurors working with Graves on a daily basis had spotted, and Graves could appreciate that.   
  
But, hell, he wasn’t head of the Magical Law Enforcement department for nothing. Scamander wanted to join MACUSA? Fine by him. It never hurt to have another competent wizard on their side, even if said wizard was only there because Graves’ own competence had been doubted. But, as he promised himself as soon as Seraphina walked out of the door, if Scamander so much as looked at the wrong side of the law, he’d find himself in one of the cells in a heartbeat.   
  
***  
  
When the magizoologist did arrive, however, Graves was pleasantly surprised, if a little put out. Mr. Scamander was staying with the Goldstein sisters, and that was probably where he left his infamous suitcase, since Graves doubted that the other man had left it in England, but hadn’t seen it either. On his first workday, Mr. Scamander arrived with Porpentina Goldstein, but without his case, and that suited Graves just fine.   
  
“Mr. Scamander”, he greeted the man after Goldstein had shown him to Graves’ office. “It’s good to see you in person.” Scamander, standing close to the door, smiled slightly, but didn’t reply. Graves, not a man who took things such as having his life saved for granted, attempted to smile back. Judging by the nervous look he received, he wasn’t doing a particularly good job. His mouth settled into a more natural expression, and Scamander eased a fraction, at least until Graves held out his hand and the other man immediately tensed up again. Graves stopped himself from sighing.   
  
“I’d like to thank you for saving my life”, he said, and didn’t remove his hand. Eventually, after a moment of hesitation, the magizoologist took it.   
  
“You’re welcome?” the man answered, putting it like a question. “Although of course, technically speaking, I didn’t save you, I only revealed that Grindelwald had impersonated you, the whole saving bit was done by...someone else” Scamander finished awkwardly. The urge to roll his eyes grew stronger, but Graves was nothing if not in completely control over his body.   
  
“Nevertheless, I’m grateful. - We’re pleased to have you here” Graves added almost as an afterthought without having an actual idea who the ‘we’ were, but at least he assumed that somebody in some department of MACUSA was somewhat thrilled about having Newt Scamander was a colleague. Probably.   
  
When the silence threatened to take over once more, the head of Magical Law Enforcement said in what he hoped was a good-natured tone of voice: “Well, I’m looking forward to your work. You will get your own office in three weeks, when another staff member resignes. Until then, you’ll have to share with Clayton and Benson. Just ask one of the goblin bellboys, they’ll take you to the right floor.”   
  
“Thank you” Scamander muttered, so quietly that Graves almost didn’t understand the words. And then MACUSA’s newest consultant left, with Percival Graves still standing in the middle of the room, wondering how in the name of Merlin Seraphina thought a man who could barely looks people in the eye would be able to be of help in any way whatsoever. But, well, who knew what the future would bring?   
  
***  
  
A whole week passed before Graves saw Newt Scamander the next time. To be honest, he’d expected it to take even longer, but then, much to his surprise, an auror came running in, rambling about Emergency, Dragon On The Loose, Come Immediately, Help, and Graves, never having dealt with a dragon before, did the first thing that jumped to mind: He went and got Scamander.   
  
When he entered the office he had assigned the man too, he found Scamander at his desk with two men hovering over him – Benson and Clayton, two aurors who had been employed during Grindelwald’s impersonation of Graves.   
Graves didn’t have the time to hear what the men were talking about, and frankly, he didn’t care a damn bit if he was interrupting Scamander’s bonding time with his workmates. “Scamander” he barked. All men flinched and turned around, Benson and Clayton looking a tad guilty, perhaps because they had just been caught chatting instead of working. Scamander, on the other hand, looked oddly relieved. “With me, now.” The magizoologist got up, almost falling over the chair in his hurry, and then actually falling over, this time over Clayton’s foot.   
  
“Sorry, so sorry” he said while getting up, and Clayton, too, mumbled something that could’ve passed as an apology. Graves felt himself growing more annoyed by the minute. “Hurry up, we don’t have all day” the auror said, and didn’t dwell on the fact that Clayton and Benson had grinned at each other during the scolding.   
  
  
“What’s the matter?” Scamander asked after Graves had taken him with him per side-by-side-apparation to the place of emergency.   
  
“A dragon”, Graves answered brusquely.   
  
“Do you know what kind of dragon?”   
  
“It’s big, it’s got wings, and it breathes fire. Isn’t that enough?” Scamander looked as though he wanted to argue, but didn’t say anything until they had gotten close enough to see the problem, and then everything went to hell.   
  
  
Later, Graves couldn’t actually remember all that much about the details, because as soon as they had caught sight of the dragon, the beast had tried to burn them alive. What followed after was but a blur in Graves’ memory. Newt had shouted something about going into hiding, and “don’t cast any spells, that would cause her to feel threatened”, which Graves, had he had time to properly think about it at that moment, would have thought the dragon damn well should. In that second, however, he had only had one thought on his mind, and that was “He’s a civilian”. Because Newt, experienced as he may be, still had no formal training for these sorts of situations, and in the end of the day, Graves was the one who was supposed to keep people save.   
  
So he had gone with his gut instinct, and apparated Newt straight back to the MACUSA headquarters before either of them could get burned into a crisp. Newt had looked him in the eye for the first time then, only for a moment, before, looking determined, he was gone again. By the time Graves, too, apparated back, this time with half a dozen experienced aurors and the desperate hope that Newt would have done the sensible thing and waited for help, he found the dragon nuzzling Newt curiously while Newt let his hand run over the beast’s scales, as though he was petting it. One of the aurors had made a snide remark about Newt preferring a dragon’s touch over a human’s, but Graves’ sole attention had been focused on the picture in front of him. He wasn’t sure the other aurors quite understood the magnificence of what was happening here.   
  
Dragons, he knew, were untameable. They were savage, dangerous and, in most cases, deadly. Yet here was a man, a man whom Graves had – despite owing him his life – not taken seriously until now, who had not only managed to survive an encounter with a dragon, but had also befriended it.   
Newt turned around just as he finished that thought, and for once he didn’t look timid, but at complete ease with himself.   
  
“Dragons are actually quite friendly by nature, once you get past the initial stage of defensiveness” he explained, continuing to pet the beast. “You see, most people don’t understand that. They try to tame them with spells, and when that doesn’t work, they kill them.” At this, the dragon gave the magizoologist a shove that would have any other man freeze in fear and that caused Newt to tell it to “just hold on for a bit, I’ll take care of you soon, alright?”  
  
“Doesn’t the killing part usually work the other way around with dragons?” Graves asked dryly once he had found his voice. Newt gave him a shy smile.   
  
“Only when they feel threatened. Wizards tend to do that a lot, you see, be threatening, that is. They are scared, so they try to punish creatures for things they can’t help.”   
  
“Right” the auror said, because he couldn’t think of anything else. “So, what do you suggest we do with it?”   
  
“ _She_ ”, Newt replied, putting slight emphasis on the word, “should go to one of the dragon reserves. There’s only few of them across the world, but then, there aren’t many dragons anymore, so they still make do.” Had he known before that there was such a thing as a reserve for dragons? Graves couldn’t remember. “The one I visited was in Mexico. They have three others there, two crossbreeds and one Norwegian Ridgeback.” Graves knew he should ask how Newt intended to get the dragon to another country, because he could hardly carry it in his suitcase. He should ask if Newt thought the beast would need to be constrained for the journey, and if, maybe, Newt would consider taking care of it until they got it to the reserve. But the only question that came to his mind right now was:   
  
“What kind is this one?” The other man smiled wistfully and a dreamy look came into his eyes as he replied:   
  
“An Antipodean Opaleye. The most beautiful dragon race in the world. And she looks like an Aurora, don’t you think?”

***  
  
In the end, it turned out that Newt knew a wizard who knew a witch who knew a wizard who happened to be in America at the moment, and who was willing to take Aurora with him to New Mexico. Graves hadn’t asked for the details because he felt like the answer would either lead to him breaking the law or to him throwing the wizard into prison. He trusted Newt to handle it instead, just as he trusted Newt to polish the report afterwards to make it seem like there had never even be a breach of the law.   
  
During the next days, Graves saw the magizoologist more frequently, as he actually went to get lunch for once instead of skipping it, and he noticed something he wished he hadn’t. Not only did Newt sit alone in the canteen, he also flinched rather violently whenever somebody approached him. Now, Graves truly had better things to do than babysit his employees, but ever since the incident with the dragon he had felt not only respect, but also something akin to sympathy for Newt. That’s why one day he sat down next to the man hunched over his food and started a conversation with him. In the following 30 minutes, Graves learned that Newt was finding work at MACUSA pleasant, he was finding living with the Goldsteins pleasant, he was finding America in general pleasant, and he was overall pleased with the current state of things. This was as much information as Newt was willing to share, so Graves changed the subject to Newt’s book instead, and the answer he received surprised him more than anything.   
  
“Oh, no, it did get published, actually” New told him. “A few months ago. I was asked to write a second edition, and I was going to, but then I was asked to take this job, and my brother encouraged me to, told me it was a great opportunity, so I thought, what can it hurt, right? So here I am. But,” he added, suddenly strangely pale as he was looking at something behind Graves, “I suppose I won’t be staying much longer.”   
  
“I thought you found that working here was pleasant” Graves said, eyebrows raised and pointedly not turning his head to follow Newt’s gaze.  
  
“It is, it is, I just, there’s still so many creatures that need my help, you see, and I do think that MACUSA can do without my advice.” MACUSA probably could, but that wasn’t the point. However, before Graves could push the matter, Newt abruptly got up, muttering a goodbye before he was gone. Graves shook his head as he returned to his office.   
  
***  
  
It took Graves another week to find out what was wrong with Newt, and when he did find out, he kind of wished he hadn’t.   
It was late in the evening, most of his employees had gone home, only Graves was still in his office, signing the last reports for the day. When he was finished, he locked up and was on his way out as he realised that there was still light in the office that happened to be occupied by Newt- and it had got to be Newt, since he couldn’t imagine one of the other two staying past regular office hours. But Newt, as far as he knew, had helped rescuing a hippogriff earlier, so it was quite possibly that he was working on writing his report in a way that would not make it seem like the injury one of the aurors received was the beast’s fault, because Merlin forbid a creature ever did anything wrong.   
  
Graves then decided to tell Newt to wrap it up for the day, since honestly, it was way past midnight, and Newt’s already sloppy writing tended to get worse the more tired the man was (how did Graves know that? Because it was he who had to read the reports afterwards). But getting closer to the office, he stopped dead in his tracks upon hearing a soft cry from a familiar voice. Another voice, rough, demanded the other man “shut up for once”, and then a third voice joined in with the suggestion of “putting his mouth to better use.”   
  
It was only when Graves heard the click of a camera followed by laughter that he got out of his frozen state and started running. The sight that greeted him was a horrific one, one that Graves would have preferred to not think about. In a way, he didn’t, at least not until he cast spells that immediately knocked Clayton and Benson out and restrained them, and he had no excuse anymore not to look at the man curled in on himself on the floor, very much naked and with bruises all over his body.   
  
At loss what to do, Graves kneeled beside Newt and raised his hand to touch the shaking man, then drew it back again before it could make contact. “Newt?” he asked quietly. “Newt.” Newt looked up, his face so pale that his freckles stood out even more, with tear streaks running down his cheeks. Graves glanced from Newt to the two restrained aurors to Newt again. “Did they-?” He couldn’t bring himself to actually ask the question. Newt shook his head regardless. A wave of relief flooded Graves.   
  
They sat in silence, Newt still shivering despite the coat Graves had awkwardly handed him, until Newt said: “They took pictures.”   
  
“Excuse me?” Graves asked, not sure whether he had heard correctly.   
  
“They took pictures” the magizoologist repeated. “Of me. In rather- rather c-compromising positions, you might say. They said they’d send them to the Daily Prophet, if I didn’t – play along.”   
  
“We’ll burn them” Graves promised, and then silence took over once more. The next time, Graves was the one breaking it.   
  
“Do you need to see a doctor?”   
  
“No” Newt said firmly, and Graves felt inclined to believe him. The bruises didn’t look too bad, all things considered, and he could remember only too well how much he had despised the medical exam when he had been found after the kidnapping. “Just – just, get me my suitcase? It’s at Tina’s – Ms. Goldstein’s place. I need, the Occamies need feeding, and the Mooncalves, and – I promised I’d get the Niffler a new trinket.” He also needed to feel save, was what hung unspoken in the air. Graves considered asking if Newt rather go back to the Goldstein’s place, then changed his mind.   
  
“I’ll go get it. And I’ll also take care of – this.” A wave of his wand, and the two unconscious aurors were floating out of the room. Graves didn’t yet know what to do with them, but the cells would do for the time being. Until he could figure out how to punish them without actually killing them with his bare hands. “Do you mind being alone for a bit?” Newt shook his head, so Graves left.   
  
***  
  
Queenie Goldstein opened the door, which was something Graves could have done without. He tried to shield his mind to the best of his abilities, but the image was still so vivid, would probably never fade, not even a little bit, would be burned in his mind forev-  
  
“Oh, that’s terrible!” Goldstein looked a mixture of horror and worry.   
  
“What do you need? Do you want me to get Tina? Where is he now?”   
  
“Still at MACUSA. Just get me his case, he asked to have it” Graves said tiredly. Goldstein, thank Merlin, didn’t argue but fetched the battered suitcase immediately.  
  
“Hey, Mr. Graves?” she asked, just as Graves was about to disapparate. Graves half-turned. “Take care of him, will you?”   
  
“I’ll try my best” Graves said.   
  
***  
  
Back in the office, he found Newt fully dressed, sitting at his desk and writing something. Graves cleared his throat and didn’t comment on the flinch it caused.   
  
“I got your case. What are you writing?”   
  
“Just finishing the report on Susan.”   
  
“Susan is the hippogriff?”   
  
“Yes.” He could have told Newt not to worry about the report, not to worry about anything right now, but he didn’t. Instead he simply lay the case on the ground and waited for Newt to get in.   
  
Newt’s shy question if he wanted to join took him but surprise, but he didn’t show it. He just followed Newt into the case and watched as the magizoologist took care of his all his creatures, making sure they were all well, before he finally broke down. Then, Graves wrapped his arms around Newt, offering what little comfort he could give. It would all be alright, he told himself. He would make sure all would be alright. Would make sure Newt would be alright.   
  
For the moment, a hug would be enough. And perhaps, the morrow would bring light rather than sorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, let me know what you think! :)


End file.
